


Hero

by ladysisyphus



Series: Wolves [22]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 04:37:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1844614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Flyers were up by one when Numbers heard it start up behind them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hero

The Flyers were up by one when Numbers heard it start up behind them. Really, the most surprising thing was that it'd taken it that long to reach an audible volume; the bar was pretty packed, which meant that even shouted conversation had to compete with a lot just to be heard. But the game was overall uneventful and the home team was losing, and that was the time when good ol' boys tended to get restless. If they weren't seeing blood on the television screen, they'd start looking for it a little closer.

Thus, Numbers (who had grown up rooting for the Flyers, fuck you very much) was explaining the concept of icing to Wrench -- who seemed to have grasped the technical aspects of the term but couldn't understand _why_ it was illegal -- when he noticed that the laughter from a table just behind them and to the right had taken on a mean edge. He paused in the middle of describing what it was for a team to be shorthanded, unable to listen and recount game rules at the same time, and Wrench frowned: What?

Idiots, Numbers signed, rolling his eyes. Wrench glanced back, and Numbers kicked his ankle: No, don't look; it's funny how they're embarrassing themselves.

From the way his mouth quirked at the rim of the beer he'd been nursing through most of the game, Wrench wasn't nearly so amused. What are they saying? he asked one-handed.

Numbers found himself searching for a way to convey that it wasn't so much _what_ they were saying as it was the tone -- which was something that, not unlike icing, he'd never found quite the right way to get across in sign. The idiots in question were six or so young bucks, blue-collar types, likely employees of one of the men they'd been dispatched here about, come down to their local watering hole after work to have a beer or twelve and watch the game and maybe give their harried wives and girlfriends a night off from having to deal with their shit. Laughing at fuckwits like that was the best way to keep from shooting them in the head on principle. Numbers listened for a second more before signing: They're pretending to be you, I think, saying, I'm a bird, flap flap, I'm a R-E-T-A-R-D bird that can't fly--

Wrench's eyes narrowed and he put his beer down on the table with dangerous calm. There, Numbers continued, that was H-E-E-B, so they're talking about me now; that's nice.

Wait here, Wrench signed, and before Numbers could respond, Wrench was on his feet with his special kind of speed, the one that didn't seem possible, given his size. The chair and table made a hellacious clatter as he shoved both back on his way up, snapping all eyes in the bar to him and freezing the six idiots like deer in headlights. One was stuck in the middle of some strange contortion, halfway between sign language and a hand cramp, too startled to have the good sense to pretend he'd been doing _anything_ else as the giant man crossed the distance between their tables in three dangerous strides. It was too dark beneath their table to be sure, but Numbers would have bet good money that at least one of them had just shat himself.

You want to say that to my face? signed Wrench, and Numbers couldn't keep from grinning at the way their panic folded into sheer terror as their angry flightless bird glared down at them. Wrench had been skeptical of it as a tactic at first, but Numbers had promised him -- after being on the receiving end of it more than a few times -- that aggressive signing was pretty intimidating, and more so the fewer words the person being signed at could understand. Wrench could have been yelling at them about a cupcake recipe and it would have added up the same. The idiots gaped like beached fish, and Wrench repeated the sentence, even though the answer was pretty obvious, as those things went: You want to say that to my face?

"Hey, mister, we didn't mean--" started one of the guys, the least baby-faced of the crew -- and that was a thing Numbers hadn't stopped to consider before that moment, how Wrench himself couldn't have been more than a couple years older than even the youngest seated there -- but no sooner had he opened his mouth than Wrench slammed his hand down on the table. The cheap wooden surface bucked beneath the impact and all their drinks jumped, and the men scrambled out of there like Wrench had just sprayed gasoline on them and lit a match. They beat a comical retreat, bumping into furniture and patrons and one another as they tore like hell toward the exits.

A stunned hush lay over the bar as Numbers stood there for a moment, surveying the rubble. Then he gave the evacuated table an appraising nod and strode back to take his seat. He glanced up at the TV and asked: What did I miss?

A fight, some blood, not much, Numbers signed. He glanced back at the empty table, grinning as the other patrons around them resumed their earlier conversations, though now at more respectful volumes. Thanks for defending my honor, Numbers signed, then winked: My H-E-R-O.

Wrench bent his face down over his beer, but the bashful gesture couldn't hide his smile.

**Author's Note:**

> It's okay, Wrench, I don't understand hockey either.


End file.
